Today is Ellie’s birthday and, if you know her, you should totally wish her a happy 26th. 26 is a big birthday for single women because it marks the official beginning of being undesirable:

In Japanese slang, a Christmas Cake is a single female past her 25th birthday, the reference being that no one wants the Christmas Cake after Christmas, no matter how good the cake is.

Thanks, Wikipedia. Incidentally, I also learned that Unmarried Brother is called a “cake eater.”

Anyway, I’m being fecicious, since Ellie will be great and desirable cake for years. In fact, there are about a million reasons why Ellie is really good cake now and at the top of the list would be that she’s pretty much the funnest person ever.

She’s also beautiful, but has a tendency to look like a stroke victim when photographed. So here’s my favorite photo of us ever taken (thanks, Barbara). It pretty much sums up everything you need to know about spending time with Ellie (i.e. that you will laugh, eat hummus, and probably have greasy hair).